it in his heart
to accuse Roderick of neglect of the young girl; for it was natural that
the inspirations of a capricious man of genius, when they came, should
be imperious; but of course he wondered how Miss Garland felt, as the
young man's promised wife, on being thus expeditiously handed over to
another man to be entertained. However she felt, he was certain he would
know little about it. There had been, between them, none but indirect
allusions to her engagement, and Rowland had no desire to discuss it
more largely; for he had no quarrel with matters as they stood. They
wore the same delightful aspect through the lovely month of May, and the
ineffable charm of Rome at that period seemed but the radiant sympathy
of nature with his happy opportunity. The weather was divine; each
particular morning, as he walked from his lodging to Mrs. Hudson's
modest inn, seemed to have a blessing upon it. The elder lady had
usually gone off to the studio, and he found Miss Garland sitting alone
at the open window, turning the leaves of some book of artistic or
antiquarian reference that he had given her. She always had a smile, she
was always eager, alert, responsive. She might be grave by nature, she
might be sad by circumstance, she might have secret doubts and pangs,
but she was essentially young and strong and fresh and able to enjoy.
Her enjoyment was not especially demonstrative, but it was curiously
diligent. Rowland felt that it was not amusement and sensation that she
coveted, but knowledge--facts that she might noiselessly lay away, piece
by piece, in the perfumed darkness of her serious mind, so that, under
this head at least, she should not be a perfectly portionless bride. She
never merely pretended to understand; she let things go, in her modest
fashion, at the moment, but she watched them on their way, over the
crest of the hill, and when her fancy seemed not likely to be missed it
went hurrying after them and ran breathless at their side, as it were,
and begged them for the secret. Rowland took an immense satisfaction in
observing that she never mistook the second-best for the best, and
that when she was in the presence of a masterpiece, she recognized the
occasion as a mighty one. She said many things which he thought very
profound--that is, if they really had the fine intention he suspected.
This point he usually tried to ascertain; but he was obliged to proceed
cautiously, for in her mistrustful shyness it seemed to